


in the shape of nothing that has ever existed before

by kate_button



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Body Image, Body Worship, Coming In Pants, Established Relationship, Grinding, Healing, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03, Scars, Schmoop, Self Confidence Issues, Singing, crop top billy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-27 22:01:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19798657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kate_button/pseuds/kate_button
Summary: Billy’s not destroyed. He’s still fucking beautiful. He’s not mangled and disfigured and horrific looking like Steve knows he thinks he is, sometimes, on his worst days.Big, big spoilers for season 3.





	in the shape of nothing that has ever existed before

**Author's Note:**

> See, I was sitting here thinking about Billy's scars and then that photo of crop top Billy happened and now, well. Here we are. 
> 
> Part one of two, probably. 
> 
> [I'm on tumblr.](https://un-buttoned.tumblr.com/)

‘You remember that crop top you used to wear?’ Steve asks him one day, head in Billy’s lap, not even pretending to watch whatever’s on the tv. It’s been a couple years of this, now, of getting to be in Billy’s space, getting to touch him and look at him pretty much as much as he wants, and it’s still never quite enough. Still leaves him breathless, hungry and gasping.

Steve only saw it a few times, at the pool in the small window after Billy got the job and before everything went utterly to shit and the world almost lost him. Steve can think about it without breaking down, now. They don’t talk about it a ton, but Billy still carries it with him. It changed him. Stripped something from him. Made him a little softer. A little more honest. A little less angry. They don’t _not_ talk about it, either, though. It happened. Billy died. Was dead for almost six minutes, bleeding on the floor of the mall, Steve and El and then Robin and Mike pressing their palms to the holes in him, trying to keep the life in, while Max screamed at him, shook his shoulders, touched his cheeks. He shouldn’t be alive. No one is quite sure how he’s alive. 

Billy drags his fingers through Steve’s hair, and Steve slips his fingers up under Billy’s shirt, traces the scar above his left hip. He’s got a lot of them, now.

‘Yeah, course I remember. You couldn’t take your eyes off me. I looked fucking hot.’ 

‘You still look hot,’ Steve says, tips his head and presses a kiss to Billy’s belly, a little softer than it was then. Steve likes it better. ‘And I wasn’t that obvious.’ 

Billy laughs, laughs easy. ‘Oh, please, baby. You were too.’ 

Steve thinks it was just sheer force of will, honestly. His or Billy’s or Max’s or El’s or all of theirs, all of them, together, pouring everything they had into Billy, into keeping him. He should have died. Should have stayed dead, but he didn’t. Steve is grateful every time he sees his face, every time he feels Billy’s heat, every time he hears his voice. He’s so fucking grateful he can’t breathe around it, sometimes.

He pushes Billy’s shirt up a little, props himself up on his elbow and presses his lips to the scar in the middle of his chest, the bad one. Billy’s fingers tighten in his hair, and Steve looks up at him. 

‘You being like this tonight, then?’ He means is Steve gonna lay him out and look at him and kiss his scars and tell him he’s fucking beautiful, is Steve gonna bury his face in Billy’s neck and get his mouth all over him and breathe him in, is Steve gonna wrap his fingers around Billy’s wrist and press his palm to his chest to feel his heartbeat, is Steve gonna touch all the reminders of the night that Billy almost left him, is he gonna put his hands on him all gentle and tell him he loves him and he loves him and he loves him, so fucking much it hurts, so fucking much he doesn’t know if he could survive losing him. 

‘You don’t wear crop tops anymore,’ Steve says, like that answers the question, and Billy rolls his eyes. It kind of does, really. Steve rubs his thumb over one of the scars high up on the side of Billy’s belly.

‘You fuckin’ know why, Steve.’ 

Steve pushes himself all the way up, puts a leg over Billy’s and sits on his thighs. Billy doesn’t have the same confidence he had back then. He doesn’t wear his shirts unbuttoned down to his belly anymore, doesn’t spend as much of his life as humanly possible shirtless. Doesn’t love his body like he used to. Doesn’t hate it, isn’t ashamed of it or anything, just. Doesn’t love it like he used to.

It’s a goddamn shame. Steve’s never loved another body like he loves Billy’s, never seen one so fucking beautiful, with so many stories to tell, so much bravery and hope and strength written in its skin, in the lines of its muscles, in the way it moves. Steve takes the hem of Billy’s shirt in his fingers and pulls at it while Billy looks at him, looks into him.

‘Let me, dickhead,’ Steve says, doesn’t look away, stands up to Billy like people rarely do. 

Billy raises his arms, and Steve peels his shirt off. He’s got that kinda guarded look on his face, the one he gets when he knows shit’s about to get vulnerable, when Steve’s about to say or do some shit that’s gonna make him feel a lot of things. Billy always lets him, needs it as much as Steve needs to do it, but it’s still not always easy for him.

Billy’s been ripped open, been through things Steve can never, ever understand. Billy’s been broken in ways that no one else on earth ever has. He doesn’t hide it, though. Doesn’t hide it from Steve. Lets him see it.

Steve sees him naked all the time. Not as much as he might have, maybe, if Billy’d never been impaled by a trans-dimensional demon tentacle monster, if he didn’t have the scars to remind him. Often enough, though, that he knows the shape of each one, knows their edges and ridges, knows the beautiful, terrible way the skin stitched itself back together. Billy calls them ugly. Steve doesn’t think they’re ugly.

There are matching, symmetrical scars on each side of Billy’s torso, just under his ribs. Steve puts his hands on them, leans down and presses his lips back to the one on his chest. The reason he doesn’t wear his shirts open anymore. The worst one, the one that almost killed him. The one that killed him. 

Billy clutches at his thighs, breath shaky, hitching occasionally. Steve runs his thumbs around the edges of Billy’s scars, kisses his way around the one on his chest, soft and slow. Billy’s skin his hot under his lips, under his hands.

Steve pulls back and Billy’s eyes are a little wide, a little shiny. Steve leans in and presses his lips to Billy’s, dry and chaste and easy. ‘I miss your crop top,’ Steve says, slips his hands down, touches two of the scars on his belly.

‘Steve-’ Billy says, voice a little cracked, ‘you _know_ -’ 

‘You know, when we were 18 and I saw you at the pool, sitting in your stupid chair with your stupid crop top and your stupid sunglasses and your stupid mullet and your stupid mustache, I thought, jesus christ. That is the most beautiful boy in the world. I thought there was no fucking way you could ever be more beautiful than you were there, then, in that moment. God, you were such a dick, too, smirking at me like you fucking knew, like you knew what the hell you were doing to me.’ 

Billy smiles, echo of that smirk. ‘Cause I did, baby.’ 

Steve smiles, ducks his head and kisses Billy’s neck. ‘I was wrong, you know. When I thought you couldn’t get any fucking prettier.’ 

Billy knows better than to argue with him. He can’t win this fight; Steve won’t let him. He lets out a breath, digs his fingers into Steve’s thighs.

‘Don’t wear your shirts undone anymore, either. It’s a goddamn shame, babe. You’re so fucking pretty.’ 

' _Steve_ ,’ Billy says, pleading a little. ‘How-’ he swallows, ‘you know I can’t.’ 

‘You fucking can too,’ Steve says, ‘if you want to, you can.’ 

‘And say what, baby? When people ask about the fucking holes in me, what am I supposed to say?’ 

Steve slides his hands around between Billy and the couch, fingers finding the scars on his back. ‘Don’t have to say anything. None of their goddamn business.’ 

‘Doesn’t stop ‘em asking,’ Billy says, quiet, leaning in to kiss Steve’s collarbone. 

‘Fuck them,’ Steve says, ‘tell them you got shot.’ 

Billy laughs, a sad little chuckle. ‘By what, a fucking grenade launcher?’ 

‘They’re not that bad,’ Steve says, scowling. They’re rough, and they’re red, and they’re obvious, but they’re not... Billy’s not destroyed. He’s still fucking beautiful. He’s not mangled and disfigured and horrific looking like Steve knows he thinks he is, sometimes, on his worst days. Steve needs Billy to know how goddamn beautiful he is, needs him to see himself the way Steve sees him. ‘I know, you know. I see the way you look at yourself. You don’t see it, what I see. You can’t. It’s not your fault – you’re way too close, looks all distorted and fucked up from where you’re standing. These?’ Steve says, running his fingers over the scars under his ribs, laying his palm over the one over his heart. ‘You died for these, and then you fucking came back. Do you,’ he digs his fingers into Billy’s chest, feels Billy’s breath hitch, ‘you have to know how incredible that is. I can’t tell you how to feel, I’m not gonna shame you for shit you have no control over, but good god, baby. You’ve got no reason to hide this.’ 

Billy bites his lip, breathes fast through his nose, presses bruises into Steve’s thighs. He doesn’t tell Steve to stop, even though Steve knows he wants to. His cheeks are red.

‘You’re so fucking pretty, Billy. Prettiest fucking boy in the world.’ 

‘Says the actual fucking Disney princess in the room,’ Billy gets out, wobbly. 

Steve smiles, ducks his head and meets Billy’s eyes again. Billy’s doing alright. His eyes are a little red, kinda look like a tear or two might tip over and spill down his pretty cheeks before they’re through, but he’s doing alright. Steve kisses his cheekbone, just under his eye, and Billy sucks in a breath. ‘It’s the hair,’ Steve says, pulling back and looking at him again, ‘it’s all in the hair.’ 

‘And the lips,’ Billy says, running his hands up Steve’s thighs, ‘and the way you blush, and your pretty eyes. You’re a fucking cartoon princess, baby, it’s honestly insane.’ 

‘We’re talking about you,’ Steve says, getting a little warm. This isn’t the first time Billy’s gotten on his Disney princess shit, calls Steve pretty all the time.

‘Maybe I’m fuckin’ sick of talkin’ about me.’

‘Yeah, well. Maybe I’m sick of not seeing you in a crop top. Of not seeing you walking around with your shirt undone down to your belly. Seeing you not loving the most beautiful body in the fucking world the way it deserves.’ 

Billy grits his teeth, digs his fingers into Steve’s thighs, goes red all the way down his neck. ‘You’re a real fuckin’ asshole, you know that?’ Billy says in a way that kinda sounds as much like thank you as anything. ‘If I dig that rag outta my goddamn drawer will you shut the fuck up about it?’ 

Steve’s belly twists and his thighs tighten around Billy’s. ‘Oh, fuck. You still _have it_?’ 

Billy rolls his eyes, slides his hands up Steve’s shirt. ‘I still have it.’ 

Steve’s heart thuds a little, happy and sad all at once. Billy misses Billy in a crop top too. It makes his heart hurt. Yeah, there’s a part of him that just wants to see his smoking hot boyfriend showing off his smoking hot body like he used to before Steve could get his hands all over it all the time, but he also wants. He needs Billy to love himself like Steve does. Thinks it’s the least he deserves.

‘I only want you to wear it if you wanna wear it, but holy shit, Billy. Do you know how many fucking times I jerked off over you like that?’ 

‘Christ, Steve,’ Billy groans, drags his nails down Steve’s back. ‘You gotta know there’s a fine line between wanting it for me and wanting it for you at this point. Hard to tell the difference sometimes.’ 

Steve laughs, breathless. It’s a fucking excellent point, and even truer for Billy than it is for Steve. Billy’s whole sexuality is built around making other people feel good, giving them an outlet for all the shit they can’t go to anyone else with, letting them be and want and experience exactly what they want to do and never making them feel bad or weird or gross about it. He was like that before him and Steve ever connected, to hear Billy tell it, and it’s only settled and solidified since they’ve been together, since everything that happened that summer. Billy wants things, has things he likes and things he gets off on and things he craves, but the shit that really gets him is watching Steve lose it, making Steve lose it. Getting him so strung out and feeling so good he can’t fucking think.

It suits both of them just fine.

He takes Billy’s cheeks in his hands and kisses him, starts real easy and lets it build slow, kisses him until Billy’s groaning into his mouth, until Billy pulls back and nips at his lip and makes Steve’s breath catch. ‘I just want you to know,’ Steve breathes into his mouth, kisses him again, doesn’t let Billy’s tongue distract him, ‘I just need you to. I love you so fucking much and you’re so fucking beautiful and I need you to believe it and I’m gonna keep doing this shit until you do, every fucking day if I need to.’ 

‘God, you’re fucking annoying,’ Billy breathes, no heat at all, doesn’t mean a word of it, gets his hands on Steve’s hips and grinds up into him. ‘Fucking, incredible and sweet and honestly so fucking good for me, I have no idea what I would do without you, but _christ_ , you’re annoying.’ 

Steve grins. ‘You knew that, though. Knew exactly how annoying I am and said yes anyway.’ 

‘My dick responds to your particular brand of obnoxious, apparently. It’s like, biology or whatever. You really think I could get away with it? Like. Wearing that shit?’ Billy’s got his hands up Steve’s shirt again, feeling him up while he rolls his hips a little, mouths at his neck, at his collarbone.

‘Christ, yeah. Yeah, you could, if you wanted to. Do you. Do you want to?’ 

Billy nods, kisses at his Steve’s neck, clutches at his back. ‘I was fucking hot. _Felt_ hot.’ 

‘Okay, first of all, there’s no _was_. You’re still hot. You’re so fucking hot, Billy, christ, that’s what I’ve been trying to _tell_ you. You’re. Oh my god, you probably don’t even see it. You. People still look at you like that, babe. Like, maybe even more now, god.’ 

‘Hmmm,’ Billy hums, and Steve can feel the vibrations against his throat, feel Billy’s little grin. ‘And second of all?’ 

‘What?’ Steve asks, kinds starting to lose the thread a little. Billy’s dick is hard against his ass and Billy’s lips are on his throat and Billy’s hands are touching him just how he likes, and Steve’s not very good at keeping his shit together for very long when it comes to Billy. 

‘Christ, you’re easy,’ Billy says, and all of a sudden Steve’s on his back on the couch and Billy’s on top of him, rubbing his hips down into Steve’s. That’s true. He is. Easy as hell.

‘That’s very fucking true,’ Steve says, wrapping his legs around Billy’s hips, digging his heels into his ass, rolling his hips. ‘You wanna fuck me?’ 

‘Wanna make you come in your pants like I did that first time. You remember?’ 

Does Steve remember. ‘Course I fuckin’ remember. We got high as fuck and did this, just like this, on my parents couch, christ. And it was about a hundred degrees out and you smelled like chlorine and coconut and I couldn’t fucking think, came in like ten seconds, oh fuck.’ 

‘Yeah,’ Billy says, lacing his fingers with Steve’s and pinning his hands to the arm of the couch nest to his head, rolling his hips, making Steve groan, arch his back, tip his head back, sends heat all through him. ‘You gonna do it again for me, baby?’ 

Steve nods, licking his lips. ‘You said it. Fuckin’ easy.’ 

Billy smiles, ducks his head and works his hips. ‘Fucking love that. Love it when you’re easy.’ 

‘You know that’s _why_ I’m fuckin’ easy, right? You do it to me. Fuckin’ made me this way.’ 

‘Goddamn right,’ Billy says, gets Steve a little closer, gets him gasping, gets him tugging against Billy’s hold. Billy doesn’t let up, presses his hands down harder, presses his lips to Steve’s and steals all the breath right out of him, makes Steve moan. 

And doesn’t let up. Doesn’t let Steve pull away, doesn’t let him move, doesn’t let him touch, just keeps their mouths sealed together and Steve’s hands pinned and grinds his dick against Steve’s through a few too many layers of fabric until Steve comes, whimpering into Billy’s mouth, thighs locked around his waist. It’s as good as getting fucked. Billy’s fucking incredible. 

Billy looks him in the eye as he comes, lets Steve see him, see all of him. Steve can’t fucking breathe.

‘Oh my god,’ Steve breathes. Feels in awe. Not the first time. 

Billy smiles, that soft, kinda self-conscious little thing that makes Steve fall in love with him all over again every fucking time he sees it. ‘You done being a fucking sap now?’ 

‘Oh, I’m just getting started. Can’t fuck me like that and expect me not to fucking fall in love with you, jesus. You’re lucky I don’t, like, write poetry or something. Fuckin’ serenade you.’ 

‘Please don’t do that.’ 

Steve grins. Has to. Hasn’t subjected Billy to his singing in, like, days.

‘ _I’ve been meaning to tell you_ ,’ he starts, not totally sure he’s nailing the pitch, kinda hopes he’s not, ‘ _I’ve got this feeling that won’t subside_ ,’ he sings, gets his hands on Billy’s cheeks, is not in any way deterred by the way Billy groans, rolls his eyes, ‘ _I look at you and I fantasize you’re mine tonight_ -’ 

‘Steve, stop.’ 

Steve grins, shakes his head, carries on, ‘ _now I’ve got you in my sights_ -’ 

‘Baby, please, I’m fucking begging you-’ 

‘ _with these_ ,’ he pauses long enough to kiss the side of Billy’s mouth, ‘ _hungry eyes. One look at you and I can’t disguise I’ve got_ -’ 

‘I fucking hate you,’ Billy says, looking at him very severely, and Steve doubles down- 

‘ _hungry eyes. I feel the magic between you and I_ -’ 

Billy claps his hand over Steve’s mouth. ‘Are you fucking done?’ 

Steve licks Billy’s palm. Billy doesn’t move it. Looks down at him, manages not to break for an impressive few moments before the corners of his mouth lift and his cheeks dimple and he rolls his eyes. Steve smiles behind his hand. 

‘Seriously. If I move my hand, you gotta keep that pretty fucking mouth shut, oh my god.’ 

Steve nods. Billy moves his hand. Steve keeps his mouth shut. Billy wipes the spit off his hand on Steve’s shirt. 

‘You’re an idiot,’ Billy says, and kisses him. 

‘Am I allowed to talk now?’ 

‘You don’t fuckin’ listen to me anyway, you’re already talking.’ 

Steve grins. ‘You love me. You love that I’m an idiot.’ 

Billy sighs. ‘I really, really do.’ 


End file.
